Know someone who would love this shiur?
The shiur in English
The Yanuka’s own words in this shiur, translated into English by Lehallel · 3,210 words · 37:09. Press a time to hear it said.
0:00 We warmly welcome the great Gaon, Rabbi Shlomo Yehuda Be'eri, shlita, the Yanuka, who came to [unclear] - the Festival of Redemption, Yud-Tes Kislev, [unclear] ... I want to share a very, very interesting story that I heard from the Rav.
2:27 When we went to invite the Rav to this farbrengen of Yud-Tes Kislev, I heard a story from the Rav, and, with the Rav's permission, I will share the interesting story with the audience. The Rav told us that when he was young, one day he made a siyum on several books of Chassidus, but the Tanya was not among them.
3:04 And that same night he dreams a dream, in which he sees the Alter Rebbe, the Baal HaTanya, in his dream, and he says to him: Why is the Tanya not being learned? The next morning the Rav goes to the synagogue, stirred by the dream, and there, in the synagogue, there comes up to the Rav the gabbai of the synagogue, and says to the Rav: I have a gift for you.
3:40 I have a gift that is very precious to me, and I think that with you it will be put to more use. The gift is a Tanya, which I received - so he tells - from the holy hand of the Rebbe. And I want to give it to you, because with you it will be put to more use. And he takes this Tanya out of the bag, a Tanya of the Kfar Chabad printing, which was printed in Kfar Chabad, and there were some, in the year 5734, there were some in those years who went in to the Rebbe for yechidus and merited to receive this Tanya.
4:21 He takes the Tanya out of the bag and hands the Tanya to the Rav, and today we will merit together. One of the customs of Chassidim is that on Yud-Tes Kislev a siyum is made on the Tanya. The Rebbe mentioned this custom many times at farbrengens, and today we will make a siyum on the Tanya with the Rav, and afterwards we will go on to sing the niggun of the Daled Bavos, the four stanzas, after we explain the greatness of the niggun.
4:51 Honored Rav, if you please. - With the permission of our masters and teachers, all the holy rabbis, the geonim, the honored ones, all the holy Chassidim, the whole holy congregation, the rav of the place, each according to his honor and his exalted standing, the day of joy, the day of the Festival of Redemption, when, baruch Hashem, Hashem, blessed be He, saved the Jewish people, the remnant, the sages, the holy ones, the tzaddikim.
Read the whole shiur in English (25 more parts)
5:39 We know that the Alter Rebbe explains a number of times in his writings that when Hashem, blessed be He, reveals the light that is within the Keser, the Crown, that the radiance of the inner Keser shines into Malchus, and Malchus rises to the Keser, then in effect the kelipas nogah will be nullified and Mashiach will come.
6:05 For the whole matter of the redemption is in effect to nullify the kelipas nogah, which is a hold of good and evil, which is 'a scoundrel with the Torah's permission' - that we fulfill all that Hashem, blessed be He, commanded us in the holy Torah - all the mitzvos and all the words and all the matters - to fulfill them in holiness and purity, and to guard the Torah, to guard the ways of the Torah, the sages, the honor of the sages, and the ability to actually bring about the revelation that the light of the inner Keser shines into Malchus, which is in effect 'the Ancient of Days sat', and 'His kingship is an everlasting kingship', as written in Daniel chapter 3, verse 23 and verse 33 - that Hashem, blessed be He, reveals that the whole radiance of Malchus, when it
6:52 is revealed and rises to the Keser - this is only when the kelipas nogah is nullified, and this can happen only and exclusively by a person submitting his mind to the sages. The Alter Rebbe merited complete and absolute self-nullification, for once they asked why he merited more than all the disciples, and why the holy Maggid merited more than all the disciples to receive from the holy Baal Shem Tov.
7:20 And once there was a story: when the holy Maggid was inside the room, one of the attendants took out an old handkerchief and asked the Rebbe whether to throw it away, and the holy Maggid was very, very startled by this handkerchief that he saw with his eyes, and he fainted. Then, after they revived him a number of times, the holy Maggid explained that he was startled because he had just seen the handkerchief of his master and teacher, the holy Baal Shem Tov.
7:52 And so it was the same with the Baal HaTanya, with the Alter Rebbe: when he saw the staff the holy Maggid used to walk with, he would tremble in all his limbs, in all his sinews, just from the staff, when he would hear its beats as it knocked on the ground when he was walking to the synagogue. So he had a very, very, very great awe, and he wanted to receive from him all his Torah, and therefore his wisdom was drawn down into the world.
8:18 And this is in effect self-nullification to the sages, because when there is faith in the sages, there comes to be one opinion, and when there is no faith in the sages, there come to be many, many, many opinions, and this is what we see - the disputes that multiply in the world, and this is what we see - the baseless hatred there is in the world. And for this one must submit the mind. Even Bilam the wicked knew the knowledge of the Most High, but he still had his animal nature and his sins. With Shimshon, the sages teach us in Tractate Sotah, page 9b, that he went after his eyes, and therefore the Philistines gouged out his eyes.
8:48 And Hashem, blessed be He, teaches us in the Torah that one must constantly nullify the intellect and submit the mind, so that we can receive a G-dly intellect. The freedom, and the day of rejoicing of the true redemption, for what all the holy ones and all our Rebbes wanted is that we come to the complete redemption. Their true and complete joy is that Hashem, blessed be He, will turn the world over, and the Jewish people will go out of all the straits, so that there is no more exile among the Jewish people.
9:16 And Hashem, blessed be He, teaches us and hints to us that the whole matter of receiving the Torah is that we always submit our minds; and as the Chinuch writes in mitzvah [unclear], that the pillar of the world and the pillar of the Torah, on which the whole Torah leans, is only faith in the sages - that they tell us right is left, of impure that it is pure, of permitted that it is forbidden. Everything the sages teach us is the essence of our holy Torah - and the self-nullification, and to cleave to each and every word of the words of the sages, and to be precise and exacting in their language.
9:48 Let each one consider in his mind that if we did not have these words, and we had not accepted the words, and we had not had faith in the sages in that generation, we would not have merited to receive the Torah until today. The very faith in the sages, and the self-nullification and the submission of the intellect that we had toward the sages - that is what earned us the Festival of Redemption, and we accepted and believed in the sages in each and every generation. When Rabbi Yitzchak says that Jerusalem was destroyed only because they made small and great equal - in Tractate Shabbos, page 109b - it is to teach the Jewish people that the whole destruction of Jerusalem happened because they made small and great equal, between a Torah scholar and a Torah scholar greater than him.
10:29 For this one must always be precise and exacting, to hear from the mouths of true sages and to nullify our intellect before the true holy ones, from whose throats Hashem, blessed be He, speaks, and this is all the holy Torah of the Rebbe, who revealed in the whole world the light, in order to bring all the ways to the coming of Mashiach and to bring the whole world to the redemption, and to prepare all the ways so that Hashem, blessed be He, will redeem us.
10:55 In Yoreh De'ah, siman 119, Rabbi Yosef explains, in the name of the Responsa of the Rashba, that the Rashba brings that a person who does not have complete faith in the sages, and denies the words of the sages, then [unclear] yayin nesech, with all the dispute that goes on today in the whole world, that 'whoever questions his teacher is as one who questions the Shechinah' - in Tractate Chullin, page 106, and in Tractate Sanhedrin, page 116a, the sages teach us only to guard the honor of the sages - that the very fact that we do not receive from them, and do not learn their Torah, or do not fulfill their words and not what they taught us - that itself is the dispute. The sages taught us the caution not to turn from their words. Rabbi Abahu says: Whoever questions his teacher is as one who questions the Shechinah. Rabbi Chanina bar Pappa says: Whoever complains against his teacher is as if he complains against the Shechinah.
11:45 And Rabbi - and Rav Chisda says that whoever makes a quarrel with his teacher is, Heaven forbid, making a quarrel with the Shechinah. Rabbi Chama b'Rabbi Chanina - Heaven forbid. Every person who makes a dispute with his teacher - a dispute with the Shechinah, Heaven forbid. And all these things are severe things. And all our foundations, that we learned - that all the joy and all the faith in the sages, all the self-nullification the sages taught us - this was so that the Rebbe Rayatz handed over his leadership in his days, and it was all in complete and absolute faith in his son-in-law, so that he would continue his path in the world; and everything he tried to reveal in the world was only for this - everything they tried and tried to reveal in the world was only for this - and all the faith in the sages we will have in every generation was only for this: that we continue in the world and reveal this holy path, so that we merit
12:42 to be redeemed with an upraised hand and to remove the disgrace we have in the heart, all the hatred and all the darkness and the clouds we have in our eyes. True, we all cry out for redemption and redemption, we want redemption and want to cleave to the G-dly light, to Hashem, blessed be He, but another year passes and another year, and we must do everything in our power to gird our loins and to listen to the Torah, to Hashem, blessed be He, who teaches us to guard the Torah, to guard faith in the sages; not to turn from the word that they showed us, right is left and left is right; and to be nullified and utterly nullified to His light, blessed be He.
13:21 Tractate Rosh Hashanah, page 25a, with Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabban Gamliel; in Tractate Shabbos, page 41, with Rav Zeira and Rav Yehudah; in Tractate Pesachim, page 42a, we learn about the people of Papunia and Rav Masna, that he taught taught them about 'mayim shelanu', and at the end of the sermon they all came toward him, came toward him for water. They thought it was his water - they read it as 'our water', but in fact they understood that it was not 'our water' - he meant water that had rested overnight.
13:50 And in their simplicity they thought that Rav Masna wants - needs - Rav Masna's water. This was complete self-nullification - for the whole transmission of the Torah passed only through faith in the sages. The Alter Rebbe's order of receiving the Torah is complete and absolute self-nullification to faith in the sages; therefore the order of the chaining-down of the worlds and the whole system of Kabbalah of the Alter Rebbe is different from all the systems of Kabbalah; and for this, baruch Hashem, we always merit to finish and learn the Tanya, and to begin and finish anew - this is in order to bring down the light of Hashem, blessed be He, in the whole world, and to teach the Torah; [unclear] these things - that Hashem, blessed be He, punishes only for two things: for disgracing Torah scholars - in Tractate Shabbos, page 119b -
14:37 in the name of Rav Nechemiah, that, Heaven forbid - in the name - Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav: Whoever disgraces a Torah scholar - there is no cure for his wound. And the second thing - in Tractate Shabbos, page 32b - this is the second thing: that, Heaven forbid, there is baseless hatred. So because there is baseless hatred, Rabbi Nechemiah says, Hashem, blessed be He - a man's wife miscarries, and his sons and daughters, Heaven forbid, and you know the continuation, may no one ever know it; may no trouble come upon the Jewish people.
15:03 But Hashem, blessed be He, teaches us that these matters of baseless hatred, these matters are very, very severe; and the Alter Rebbe explains in chapter 32 - that the Rebbe Yosef Yitzchak explained that this whole chapter is the heart of the Tanya, in order to bring all hearts close to Hashem, blessed be He; and all that he considered important is so that we can understand and know what a G-dly soul truly is, to understand the greatness of the souls of Israel, in order to uplift the mind and the intellect, so that a person knows before Whom he [unclear], before the King of the kings of kings, Hashem, blessed be He.
15:42 As we have merited to have here the holy handwriting of the Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, the previous Rebbe, may his merit protect us - he writes about this at length in the maamar where he explains how important the holy soul is, and to honor all the holy souls, which are considered from the hidden treasuries on high. And to continue this light and to continue this mercy, we must stop all the baseless hatred and all the disputes and all the divisions there are in our people.
16:14 As it is written in Kallah Rabbasi, chapter 5: The Rabbis taught: Whoever hates his fellow, it is as if he actually kills him, Heaven forbid. A person who hates his friend - it is as if he kills him. And this is all the troubles that come in the world. Rabbi Yisrael Dov Ber, the She'eris Yisrael of Vilednik, writes he writes it in [unclear], gate 10, chapter 10; he writes, Heaven forbid, that all the sicknesses and illnesses that come, come because there is baseless hatred among the Jewish people, that they hate one another, that Hashem, blessed be He, puts illnesses into them.
16:43 Therefore the Shelah also writes in Parshas Eikev, that all the illnesses and plagues that come to the world are because of baseless hatred. And as the Rebbe already explained in chapter 32, that the more we increase in love of the Jewish people, Hashem, blessed be He, will grant us the complete redemption, and we will all merit mercy and good blessings, in visible and revealed good, out of joy and gladness of heart, and may there be all the good flow and blessings for the whole Jewish people, that all may come to joy, to salvations, to miracles and wonders, to all the blessings and the good flow, and may the Rebbe's merit protect us, that we merit to be joyful in his joy, and to go on nullifying ourselves to the Torah in complete and absolute self-nullification,
17:25 not to turn right or left from anything the sages show us, and to be nullified and utterly nullified to His light, blessed be He, which will shine to all the worlds. Amen. The siyum, which concludes in the Kuntres Acharon: Since it is known to those who know 'chen', the hidden wisdom, that in all the mitzvos there is an inner side and an outer side, and the outer side - there is the outer side of Shabbos, which is resting from physical work, as Hashem rested from making the physical heavens and earth; and the inner side of Shabbos, the inner side that is in Shabbos, is the intention in the Shabbos prayer and in Torah study, to cleave to the One Hashem, as we learned in the Beis Yosef, siman 307, on the prohibition, Heaven forbid, of speech, forbidden
18:15 on the day of Shabbos in weekday matters - when a person speaks of weekday matters; and likewise in Tikkunei Zohar, in a particular tikkun, and likewise in Tractate Shabbos, page 150b, which we learn according to the words of the Rebbe, as it says, 'a Shabbos to Hashem your G-d', and this is the aspect of 'Zachor', Remember, or the aspect of 'Shamor', Keep; on the inner side it is resting from physical speech, as Hashem rested from the Ten Utterances by which the physical heavens and earth were created, for 'G-d made this opposite that', etc.
18:40 We shall return to you, holy book of Tanya, and you shall return to us. May the merit of the holy Tanya and the merit of the day of joy and the day of redemption - that we all merit to be redeemed with the complete redemption, and Hashem, blessed be He, will continue the light of all of us, and Hashem, blessed be He - and may we merit the complete redemption with an upraised hand; fortunate are we, [unclear] Israel; may everyone have all the blessings and the good flow. Yasher koach, and all the blessings and the good flow.
19:05 Wow, - Mazel tov, mazel tov. We are finishing the Tanya, and we begin it again tomorrow. The first Jewish calendar that begins not with the Rosh Hashanah of the first of Tishrei, but with the Rosh Hashanah of Yud-Tes Kislev, is the Hayom Yom calendar that the Rebbe composed, and in it he set out the daily study schedule of the Tanya, which is learned day by day; we begin it tomorrow and finish it, with Hashem's help, on the 18th of Kislev next year.
19:45 May we merit next year as well, at this farbrengen, to make such a siyum on the holy Tanya. And we are now going to sing the niggun of the four stanzas, the Daled Bavos.
Get the week’s best, by email
One email a week — a handful of shiurim and music. No account needed.
Know a family who would use this? Give a Lehallel membership.